


exitlude

by jessamoo



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:14:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2616404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessamoo/pseuds/jessamoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the prompt "season 6 au where Hale comes back and helps Tara - they leave together and live happily ever after"</p>
            </blockquote>





	exitlude

“Is this because of him?”

Jax is sat across from her, the mountain of him in one tiny hotel chair. She always felt like he was the type of man that took up the whole room, like an eclipse shadowing everything. Now he seemed so small, hunched over in his chair, staring at the floor sadly.

“No, its not because of him.” She whispers. “its because of me. And you. because of the club, your mother, everything that they've turned us into. Its about the boys.” She finishes firmly, staring at him, trying to catch his eye.

Jax shakes his head and closes his eyes. Tara sighs and pushes herself up, moving slowly to crouch in in front of him.

She stares up at him intently, right into those cold blue eyes. How was it possible that she used to see a warm ocean in there, instead of the glaciers she saw now? How was it that these same eyes were the innocent ones that existed in her children?

“I love you more than anything.” He whispers, holding her face tightly. 

She can feel the rings on his fingers biting into her skin. The sons always left their mark in some way or another. She’d felt these rings on her skin before, it had been in love that time too. But that time had been soft, and now the metal dug into her and a part of her wanted it to.

“I know.” She breathes. “I love you too. Jackson, I love you…but not more than anything. Not more than our children.”

Jax squeezes his eyes shut again and presses his forehead to hers. 

“I have to take them Jax. You know I have to take them.”

Jax nods and presses his face into hers, the landscape of them always fitted together perfectly, like they could rest against the curves of one another forever. She can feel tears against her cheeks and she doesn’t know if they are hers or his. It doesn’t matter anyway, really. They had always been made of the same thing. When they were young and romantic Jax liked to say they had been forged in the same star at the beginning of the universe. He traced constellations across her skin.

But now it felt like all the stars had fallen, and she was running away from the darkness, to the only source of light next to her.

She kisses him just once before she leaves. Just once, and it’s a kiss that holds forever in it. The forever that they had loved one another for, that they would love each other for. The forever that had been ruined by the dust and choking of motorcycle fumes, by the bang of a gavel.

“Say thank you to Hale for me.” Jax says as she reaches for the door. "For looking after you when I couldn't."

Tara pauses and turns back to him with a small grateful smile.

“Babe.” Jax stares at her, and she knows that these are the last words he’s ever going to say to her. He’s choosing them carefully, she can see the concious effort on his face.

“You’re a good mother.”

And with those words ringing in her ears, shaking her bones, she leaves.

 

Jax thought Hale had saved her. But she had saved herself, really. Saved her kids. But David had come back and helped her and she couldn’t have been more grateful. he hadn't asked questions or tried to stop her from doing anything, he had just helped her and been there for her. More than anyone else had. He’s even given her a little bit of money that he’d saved, but she’d asked him to send it to Margaret, wherever she was now, if he was going to give it to anyone.

 

He helps her get a house.

Its nice, it’s a good size, bedrooms for both the boys. Even a spare room, though another baby was a secret hope that she was terrified of thinking about.

For now David slept in the spare room. She had asked him to stay for a few nights whilst she got the boys settled and he had happily agreed. She didn’t know if he would, he must have his own life now. But the way he smiles at her, the way he nods and grins when she asks him, its like he isn't thinking about anything else. Like she’s the most important thing to him right now. Its been so long since anyone had look at her that way and it feels good. Feels like maybe the weight she had been carrying for so long was a little less heavy.

 

She hadn’t planned to let him stay for so long, but she can't bring herself to ask him to leave.

Each morning he’ll help with the boys, swinging Abel up in his arms, helping him reach things from the shelves. He feeds Tommy, aeroplane-ing with all the enthusiasm he can muster. And she finds herself laughing. She realises with startling, terrifying clarity that she feels happy. She’s watching her kids playing and being kids again, with a man that cares about all of them.

He never asks her to talk about Jax, or Gemma. He acts like their life had started there, in that house.

But she knows it didn’t.

Sometimes she hears the chug of a motorbike outside and she freezes, her heart breaking out of her ribs until it fades away again. She puts locks on all the doors and keeps a baseball bat in the closet by her bed. A gun in the draw would be more useful she knew, and she had considered it. but she had decided if she really was going to get out she had to do it properly. No more guns. Nothing like that. Sometimes she thinks about how Jax would have a knife on his belt, even when he was in the house, carrying the baby, even when he proposed to her. There was always that sharpness underneath the sweetness. She doesn’t want that here.

Tara was a smart woman, too. She knew from the way he looked at her that he had feelings for her. Maybe he always had. But she can’t be with anyone like that, not just yet. The last person she had felt inside of her was Jax. Despite everything that had happened, a part of her wanted to hold onto that a little longer. She’d taken her rings off and she knew that soon the little marks that showed her where they had been would fade. She can’t let the whole of him fade, not just yet. She had always imagined the last person she would be with in her life was Jax. Maybe somehow that would still come true. But for now she had to keep him like a secret inside of her that no one else got to see.

But she begins to feel lonely. 

She would stretch out over the bed, the first few nights, revelling in how much space she had to herself now. But soon the novelty wore off and it felt cold and strange. She couldn’t go and wake the boys up and hold them whilst they slept, not forever. She couldn’t cling to them like an anchor, the way Gemma always did with her family. She wouldn’t become that.

So then, when David looks up at her the way he always did, like he’s the happiest man in the world because she’s allowed him to watch cartoons with Abel or try teach Tommy to talk, she suddenly feels like if he stayed forever it would be a good thing.

Hours later, as they said goodnight, she reaches out and takes his hand. he’s hesitant and unsure, but she moves his hand to her waist anyway.

The first night they make love its slow and tender and she wants to cry at the softness of it. his hands skate over her tattoo and pause for a moment. She’s suddenly scared for what he’ll say at the reminder of where she’s come from.

But he presses his nose against hers, then turns her slightly into him so he can bend over her and kiss the ink that flooded over her skin. It’s a kiss that says I know who you are, I’ve always known, I accept you, every part of you, even the worst parts, because you are the same person I knew all along. She smiles into his shoulder and hopes to god that its true. 

 

Its peaceful in Oregon, as time passes and they all get used to it.

Abel misses his father, but somehow he knows that she took him to protect him. He had that sense, like kids do, that whatever life they had now was going to be better than before, even without Jax. And he did love David, who always had time for him and knew all the names of his teachers.

“You’re good with them, you know.” She smiles at David as they sit together on the couch, watching the kids play.

He flushes a little, it’s the first time she’s said it. he nods gratefully as he says “Thank you. you always worry, you know, if kids are going to like you. especially when they’re someone else's. But I always thought I would make a good father.”

He shifts suddenly as he realises what he’s said, but she isn't angry. 

“Not that I’m their – I’m not trying to replace Jax, I’m just, you know - “

“I know.” She grins and leans up to kiss his jaw.

Tara rests her head on his shoulder gently. “I think you would make a good father.” She whispers.

 

And one day a girl is born with dark hair and blue eyes.

Throughout the whole time she’s pregnant David is constantly surprised at how much she is able to do, how long she is able to work. She had forgotten he hadn’t seen her like this the first time round, with her Thomas. She had had to learn to do everything, Jax had been in prison. Sometimes she thinks about how much Gemma had helped her, and she misses those times. But then she remembers everything else, and tries to focus only on the life growing inside of her.

When they find out its going to be a girl, David kisses her forehead happily. But for a long time, all she can think about it Jax. The baby she had faked, who he had thought would be a girl who looked just like her. She misses him then, like an ache in her chest.

The ache dissipates a little when she watches David paint the spare room pink.

Because she did love him. Not the way she loved Jax, but it was enough. She didn’t love him like he was an extension of her, like a phantom limb she could always feel. She didn’t love him like her bones would break with the weight of it, like he’d be the face of the angel that took her to heaven. She didn’t love him in that horrific, holy way she loved Jax.

But he was safe. And good and kind, and her heart swelled with it whenever he looked at her with that smile that reached his eyes, that had no lies behind it. She loved him when he held her at night. When David wraps his arms around her its like he’s keeping her safe. With Jax it had been like he was keeping her there for himself. Jax was all leonine ferocity and storms. Hale was calming and kind, he loved her sweetly and without reserve.

So eventually Tara Knowles finds her family. The one she had been searching for for as long as she could remember.

She had made it herself, and it was perfect.

And as she watches David running around in the sun with their kids, she knew why Jax had said what he did, why he had picked those last words that would carry her into her future.

Because she had carved out this happiness for her children. Because she had let herself love again and given them another father.

Because all this had proved she really was a good mother.


End file.
